News, Updates & ramblings

This Blog is acting as the news and updates page for my new website, HobbyBrush.com.

The website itself is the archive of my painting through the last decade or more, with easy navigation around what now amounts to over 3000 images of wargames figures & display miniatures.

It is also the repository for my musings, workbench notes and reports on all things gaming and miniature painting that I get up to.

I've been collecting miniatures for 24 years and have covered most scales, periods and styles in that time. Don't expect consistency on one project here - there will be variety in project, but hopefully consistently high standards!

Thanks for reading!

Sunday 27 March 2011

A Good Weekend for the Website...

Well, not only have I thrown some paint around this weekend, I'm also back on here with another update - and this time galleries!

As mentioned in the Workshop review post below, i bought a (modest...)Pile of Warmachine & hordes models to paint & sell a few months ago & the first of these hit the galleries today. alongside them, I've added a couple of pages of old models to keep working through the backlog as well. I hope you enjoy them all :)


Warmachine Protectorate of Menoth Gallery - 13 pictures
Hordes Skorne Gallery - 12 pictures
10mm Lord of the Rings BoFA "Forces of Good" Gallery - 33 pictures
10mm Lord of the Rings BoFA "Forces of Evil" Gallery - 8 pictures

Total Gallery Count: 4
Total Picture Count: 66

Articles online!!!

I Fixed the site! WooHoo!

OK, now the celebrations are over, I gotta admit, I did nothing other than engage my brain a little better this time around. I dont know what I was doing when I last tried, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that the Following articles are now online and ready for download through the main site at last!

GGC's Variant Core Rules pack for SoW
Bolt-On Rules for Multiple variant artillery ammunition types
Bolt-On Rules for engineers, medics, comms, officers, and recovery vehicles
Updated "Suburban Carnage" rules for fighting in built up areas

All accessable as PDFs via the Articles section, or the Seeds of War gallery on this very site.

The Brushes are flying - More updates coming soon!

A Workshop Tour

I'm drowning in prjects. I always have a lot on, but its getting crazy. So, rather than start on any of them right away, I thoguht I'd stop to show you all!

Most of these pics were taken a couple of weeks ago, but little has changed since then and it give you a good idea what I'm talking about....

First up, the only ones to have progressed much - my 6mm soviets! This is the latest batch, part way through having all their barrells replaces with brass rod which wont bend so easily. About half of these have been painted since the pic was taken!



In a complete change of scale, style, and everything else, I recently bought a bulk load of Warmachine / Hordes from a mate who runs the Aldershot Games Shop and I'm painting it all for sale. Here we have the first batch partly done - Protectorate of menoth Flameguard and Jacks:



This pic shows a wide variety of projects on the go. There's 28mm Romans (part of another bulk purchase, painting for sale), some 15mm Romans just because I had them and thought "whilst painting big, might as well...", some 28mm pirates, the necrons you will see more of below, and the corner of the 2"x2" 6mm soviet Project Board too - phew!


Picture 4 is something of a rarity for me these days. Because I have a "proper" job these days, and real life issues keep cropping up, I rarely take on commissions but this one is for a local gamer I know quite well and has been ongoing for some time. Epic Necrons - gotta love the community spirit ;o)

On the back shelf you can just make out my own epic Space Wolves. They never get worked on any more, but are always there tempting me to sillyness...


These Guys have been lurking around since april last year. They're by hasslefree miniatures, for the Twighlight game and very nice they are too. I bought them at Salute 2010, after a VERY long time spent hanging around their gaming table and sales stand. I finally bought these with a promise of bringing painted ones back this year, so I'd best crack on with them!



The corner of the actual painting area is a testement to intent over action. The Wizard on the left has been in that state for 3 years or more. The 15mm civilians & scouts I bought on a whim a couple of years back & I've painted half of them but stalled completely when I left scouting myself. The pots on the right each have a single Space Marine era Epic model on. I intend to paint one of each of the originals to a very high standard as something of a homage to 6mm, but that's been the intention for 18months now...(spot the pattern here?). The Classic 40K ork is just that - never started painting him, he just looks cool. Oh, but the Griffon is new! I'm waiting until a couple more fall into my possession so I can batch paint & sell them :)



And Finally for the workshop's painting areas, the other corner of the actual painting section. The Ogre's / giants are relative newcomers - they've only been there for 4 months or so. The handgunners, 40K marine scout and wizards have been there longer than I care to remember. But the really shameful one is the Large sculpt. It's a large scale Kraytonian bust I started WAY back in 2006 I think with the intention of having it done for that year's salute. However, plans for the big day took over and my first attempt at large scale sculpting ceased. I never really went back to it. It remains as a reminder & I've recently bought some new clay... oh dear... :D


Oh, and then there's the stockpiles.... I'll add just one picture of my current DRM stockpile - another case of buy on bulk to paint & sell... I just can't help myself!


So yes, far too much to ever complete. In my defence, the largest stockpiles were bought when it looked like I was going to be out of work for 3 months having operations on my knees. But then that hasn't happened (yet) and I've had a hell of a lot of other stuff going on, so things have built up to an all time crazy....

... time to stop writing and start paitning I guess! :)

Wednesday 16 March 2011

File Upload Woes :(


Hi all, I'm Paul, and I broke the HobbyBrush....

I'm sorry to say that there wont be any articles going up in the proper articles section for a while.

I am having a few issues, undoubtedly with myself rather than the website itself, but either way I cant get the PDF uploads to work!

I've put them all online, so you can take a look, but I'm afriad you have to dig for them from here as I cant link them directly into the website :(

[SoW] GGC's Alternative Core SoW rules pack
[SoW] Suburban Carnage V2.0
[SoW] Loading the Guns V1.0
[SoW] Unsung heoroes V1.0

More fail! I'll keep trying though - galleries a plenty next time :)

Thursday 3 March 2011

Less than itended....

Of the promised articles....(a post from the past)

I have to admit to having been previously distracted by some new clay I bought the other day, so my list of documents is not what I had previously boasted at any rate, but soon up will definitely be:
Guildford Games Club's Seeds of War Variant Rules - complete edited version of the core rules!
New SoW rules for different artillery munitions (namely smoke, bunker busters, incendiary and area suppression)
New SoW rules for support units (medics, NCOs, COmms officers, repair units)
Suburban Carnage 2.0 for SoW

And the others from the list below are all still in the works.... I just dont apparently type as fast as I thought I did!

At this point I must describe my situation - I'm sitting in a hotel bar, where I have been quietly tapping away writing and updating a couple of seeds of war articles for the past couple of hours, with the intention of putting them online tonight.

However, with the sudden swarming of 400 odd college students out of the main function room and into the bar where I am seated, I fear my night of quiet geekery might have just been cut short! I suddenly feel very old and out of place...

The documents I can continue to write from the comfort of my hotel room, but unfortnately the only net access available here is in this bar, so they wont be making it online just yet!

Of the Here an now...

I'm afraid that was over a week ago & I never did make it online to make the intended updates! Those will be going online tonight or tomorrow - watch this space.

What I have done, however, is to activate a couple more galleries to show willing. So, to bring the worst of the 2011 drought to an end, may I present a few pages of pretty things....

15mm FLames of War Soviet Massed Army Gallery (14 pictures)
Studio Mordheim Angry Mob Gallery (21 pictures)
15mm Fantasy Misc Gallery (6 pictures)

New Gallery Count: 3
New Picture Count: 41
New Article Count: 0 - FAIL!

Tuesday 1 March 2011

Its.... March... ????

Things have been a bit hectic lately, to say the least!

I have done a little painting, but not the loads I normally put together in a gap of 3 months from posting and certainly not the hordes I had planned!

I am currently taking a week out from the world as a whole. I am hidden away somewhere in the UK with little other than a laptop and a couple of books for company. I'll not be online much, but part of my plan is to catch up on some of the heaps of articles and rules documents that I've been intending to put togehter and / or polish up for some time.

The one disadvantage is that the laptop I've very kindly been lent is slightly out-of-date and I cant do spomeof the formatting I usually do for Seeds of War articles, so they may not be pretty, but currently being worked on (all of which have needed properly writing up for at least 6 months, some 2+ years!):

Guildford Games Club's FAQ & Erratta for SoW
SubUrban Carnage 2.0
A selection of new SoW scenarios
Electronic warfare for all 3 core races
Repair units, Medics, NCOs and COmms officers for the Pax
Variant artillery ammunition rules
Mega Walker FOrce Organisation for the Andrayada
Special Ops / Recon Force Org for the Pax
Weapons reference list for all 3 core races in SoW.

If I've promised anyone any articles (be they seeds of War or otherwise) in recent months (hell, years.... whenever!) please drop me a line at the normal email address - this is your best chance to get me when I might actually be able to do something about it :)

Happy gaming!